Poetry and Songs
I have been writing poetry all my life and have published three collections of poetry; Enlivenment, Healing through the Goddess, and Crone Times, as well as having individual poems published in a range of magazines and anthologies.
I have been published in a range of publications and anthologies including, Love and Loss, Diamond Dust, and Glastonbury Goddess Temple newsletter. I have a poem and a song in 2 forthcoming anthologies.
In 2014 I co-wrote the Avalon Anthem which opened the Glastonbury Festival in 2015.
Available at Goddess Temple Gifts shop
My poetry books are also available through Amazon
I offer poetry readings for ceremonies and for public events on request
Enjoy this small sample of my published poems
Some reviews of my poetry:
Enlivenment, a first book of poetry from Lynne Sedgmore
This volume of 24 poems, with beautiful purple cover and thick-papered pages, is a refined expression of her spiritual journey. The power of her writing arises from her sense of the sacred infusing the world of everyday realities, her melding of the inner and outer life, the spiritual and the visceral. Take these lines from 'Mother Love':
No magic potions here or fairy mother wand –
just me – alone – post-birth –
with open soul,
and you held tight in trembling arms.
There are reflections here of her former busy life, for example in the elegiac poem 'Awe in the City' (a title implicitly contrasted with the world's recent obsessions with Greed and Sex in the City) when, walking to her central London workplace early in the morning, beside the River Thames and Parliament:
I pause – stunned
at the start of my demanding day –
stopped still with awe.
Finding time to stand and stare
as tears come;
seeing spirit everywhere –
schisms healing –
falling away –
divisions dissolving.
Several poems convey a raw soulful empathy with people she knows to carry lasting wounds, while blessing them from that imperturbable heart space that radiates peace and supporting love. One of these imagines how it feels to be the victim of incestuous rape as a child, and holds out the hope of healing. Another records her thoughts for a friend embarking on an 'Anniversary Vigil' for the brother who ended his own life ten years before. This comes towards the end of the poem:
I pray the peace he found in death
will fill your soul,
renew your breath,
refresh your life
as you release the hurt
and let him go.
I've read this excerpt a dozen times, and it brings an inner gasp every time, sparked by the word "breath" rising at the end of the third line – juxtaposed with the earlier falling note of "death" – as it literally raises the breath within me.
Rob MacLachlan
Crone Times
This book was obviously influenced by the author’s experience of ageing and bereavement following the death of her mother. Lynne has turned her own process of getting old, with all its highs and lows, aches and pain, into metaphorical gold spinning words of power into wisdom and truth. Some of the best poems come out of the grace of trauma.
Lynne Sedgmore’s abilities as a wordsmith are amazing and these poems are more evidence of that.
Janet Parfitt - Editor of Glastonbury Goddess Temple Newsletter
This anthology of poems and other works expresses Lynne’s own journey round the wheel of the year and her own growth into a Priestess Healer.
In Returning, we see the beauty of Her return to the land:
"Our Lady shimmers in the waning of the mist Revealing Her contours in the land".
Lynne shows us the elements through newly-opened eyes: the inspiration of fire, lightness of air, cleansing water and abundance of earth, in a whole series of poems and prayers, including The Lady’s Prayer, a heartfelt Goddess version of the well-known Lord’s prayer. Throughout the collection are many devotional songs to Goddess in her many aspects, from maiden Bride to a lovely depiction of autumnal Ker:
"Ker’s golden tresses of land tumble into the browning of Autumn Equinox"
to a celebratory song of Sisters Celebrating in Crone Circle, with its wisdom and deep understanding of necessity.
Geraldine Charles - Editor of Goddess Pages magazine